


So No One Told You Life Was Going to Be This Way?

by cypsiman2



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: An introspection on Chi-Chi, F/M, Who deserved far more than to be a comedic punching bag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-31 01:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13964748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypsiman2/pseuds/cypsiman2
Summary: Chi-Chi had always been a country girl who'd learned about things like life and love through the magazines she'd read.  In retrospect, a lot of headaches could have been avoided if she'd had better guides on life.





	So No One Told You Life Was Going to Be This Way?

Chi-Chi had never had a mother. Her father the Ox-King had found her in the ruins of a village that had been raided by bandits, and after dealing with them, he had given up his fearsome warlord ways. Though he did let his reputation stand as long as it could, as that made it simpler for him to keep his daughter safe. At the same time, that reputation, and his general appearance, made it rather difficult to find someone who would be willing to serve as Chi-Chi's mother and teach her all the things that he didn't have the first clue about. So, the Ox-King did the next best thing; he went down to the supermarkets and bought up all the magazines he could find that promised to teach girls everything they needed to know about being girls. Very few cashiers questioned his choice of purchase, or that he paid in the form of treasures he'd found along the way, solid gold rings and such. For a while Chi-Chi read the magazines together with her father, this being the first reading she ever really did, but once she was able to, she read the magazines on her own; these were, after all, the secret rules that only girls were supposed to know! That's what one magazine said right on the cover even!

So Chi-Chi learned about the things that all the girls down in the city got to learn just by living in the city; little girls like her were encouraged to be tough and reliable, so they could help support their parents, especially their father. So, while Chi-Chi had gone out into the fields to pick some flowers, there were several articles about how important that was and the flower crowns and bouquets were very pretty, she ended up getting into a fight with a dinosaur. She'd panicked, sure, but it was big enough to eat her whole! If she hadn't been the daughter of the Ox-King, equipped with a special helmet with both a super-sharp throwing blade and a laser-beam gem, who knows what would have happened?? After that she ran into Yamcha and Goku. Yamcha said he was in love with her, just like in the magazines, but he ran off almost right away, so clearly he wasn't the one. Goku on the other hand...

Well, the magazines told her that boys her age could be rather stupid, though patting her on the crotch to make sure she was a girl seemed way beyond even normal boy stupidity! Still, after a bit of a scuffle and crash from the Kintoun, she was sure of it; the magazines said that boys would be secretive about their true feelings, but their actions would show their true worth, and in the end Goku was able to retrieve the venerable Master Roshi and extinguish the blaze that had consumed her mountain home. Even if Master Roshi hadn't been everything she'd imagined, in this he'd come through, so why not the boy Son Goku? And when he promised he would come back to marry her, that was that! The magazines were absolutely clear that boys never made promises unless they meant it, so that meant that Goku had meant it too! It was only a matter of time before she'd be making use of the lessons from the magazines for older girls!

For years she read the magazines and practiced the lessons in them. She read other magazines too, ones that mentioned Goku fighting in the Tenkaiichi Budokai, and so she sparred with her father. The years passed, and Goku never showed up to make good on his promise. Even though she was 18 and could be married now! How could he forget? It didn't make sense! Well, sometimes a woman had to take charge, and with her father's blessing she left for the 23rd Tenkaiichi Budokai. At first it had been...frustrating. Goku didn't remember her at all, and there was a moment where she thought that maybe that blue-haired girl in the audience might have been involved. Two-timers! The magazines warned about them in no uncertain terms! Still, all was well that ended well; Goku kept his promise, even after it turned out he thought marriage was a kind of food, and surely that meant that everything would be back on track, right? Right?

Well, no. No matter what Chi-Chi tried, and there were so many things she'd learned to try in preparation, Son Goku just wouldn't become the kind of breadwinner husband she was told he'd become. She did love him, he was sweet and kind and had an unfailing good heart, but why couldn't he understand that the days of fighting were over? He'd beaten Piccolo the Demon King for crying out loud, he was the strongest warrior in the world! Something that had certain advantages that none of her magazines ever went into but that was a story for another time!

But no, if she couldn't have the husband that she'd been promised, she'd have the son she was supposed to have! The magazines were all emphatic on this, a good mother raised a scholar, someone who could get a good job and marry a good wife and have more good children and so on and so forth. So that's exactly what Chi-Chi did, pressing hard on Gohan who would surely understand that she was just trying to do what she was supposed to do, right?

Well, maybe if he hadn't been kidnapped and abducted by Goku's space brother Raditz and then by the Piccolo who was the son of the previous Piccolo; how convenient that he didn't need to find a wife to have his kid. Then again, one time Goku mentioned that it happened by Piccolo spitting out an egg the size of his head and she decided that was not something she ever wanted to be part of, no thank you! Regardless. Things had gone off-course, and they kept going off-course for years to come, and while she did manage to get some studying out of Gohan, it was clear that at the end of the day, her family was never going to be anything like it was in the magazines. Her husband was flighty and irresponsible and would freely chase after the chance at a fight with someone stronger to test himself more and more, and her son, while eventually following the path that she'd wanted for him, could still find himself prone to those same flights of fancy when his father got involved.

And yet...Goku, despite his many faults, faults that she'd ranted about more than once, was unquestingly loyal to her. Even when he was gone for years at a time, she never once had to worry that his heart would wander from her. He was the hero of the Earth, of the entire universe! He'd defeated space tyrants and ancient super-demons that had slain the gods themselves! And when they were together...it just worked. Maybe it took some nudging and pushing, but Goku would do as told, and the times he surprised her...well, Goten was around for a reason! And Gohan was a son that she could hold the highest pride in, he did become a great scholar, he'd met a beautiful and wonderful girl, they had a daughter themselves!

Life wasn't like the magazines had told her it would be like, and trying to make her life fit that mold had probably given her more gray hairs than Goku ever could have; after all, he'd always been unfailingly honest and upfront with her about who he was and how he felt about her. So, between the magazines and Goku, well, Chi-Chi would go with Goku every time.


End file.
